Dining with the Washingtons
A Culinary History

"Thus, along with the distinction of being 'First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,' it seems fitting to add another, rather surprising item to George Washington's long list of accomplishments– (almost) first in whiskey." – Dennis Pogue, "Drink and Be Merry: Liquor and Wine at Mount Vernon"




Facets of sustainability take on many guises. Today, a rain barrel at the corner of our house for the sake of a water flow into the garden fits the bill. Buy from the organic bulk section of the co-op and make  your own granola serves as a great way to buy local and to know what is actually in the food you are assembling. Keep your heating and air conditioning down to a minimum. Drive less, obviously – if you can get there by bike or foot, why not? Exercise itself is a component of sustainability as it increases your heart rate, gets you off of of the electronics, and thereby offering another alternative reality to consumption.  As the list of sustainable options increases, it is very interesting to consider them in context to the living styles of Colonial and Revolutionary America when, whether they wanted to or not (and many farmers did so) all of life was sustainability. We moderns, with a kind of blind distrust of history, actually find ourselves in a very precarious position in history – we claim the right to disregard any history pre-dating the year 2000, all the while secretly chasing and longing for many (not all, obviously) of the components of slow food, slow money, care for the land, craftsmanship, investment in home, work the self, re-connect to the political system, keep things local, stay fit, talk to people, take time for lunch in a courtyard, raise some chickens, etc., etc. As the Washingtons of the world might very well have been on a fast track, somewhat unwittingly, toward mechanization (think of the Mt. Vernon gristmill turning fully automated, then the steam engine not far behind), now we are on a seeming fast-track to reel back in some home-spun tendencies to call our own. Where the past meets the future is where we find organics, co-ops, biking over carring, small gardens and outdoor education. It seems the sooner that we are to re-consider our own history for all of its triumphs and warts (plenty of these), the sooner we can usher in a more meaningful contemporary culture, where we can move forward by sometimes allow ourselves to move backwards, no self-judging.  I picture the thought process of the Washingtons at Mt. Vernon where it became mightily clear that to continue to import all of that liquor, wine and beer from places like Portugal (Madeira) port from Boston, or Rum, the most essential spirit in America at that time: "The record of the Rum account entered in the Mount Vernon plantation records for 1787 ... Washington acquired 491 gallons of rum that year, purchased in eight shipments from five merchants; these ranged in volume from a single barrel (thirty-one gallons) to a hogshead containing 125 gallons." Besides the great thirst for rum and ale, Madeira was the General's favorite post-supper drink, to such a degree that Madeira vines were attempted on Mt. Vernon, just as a whiskey distillery was opened on the estate.  The prolific rate of micro home brewing comes to mind, or the popping up of various winery in areas of the country usually deemed as ungrowable. As the lens zooms upward and outward onto farm at Mt. Vernon, we can see a tendency to keep all sustainable needs growing on premise: kitchen garden for all produce, a smoker for hams, bacon, a grist mill for flour, a distillery for spirits, cash crops for trade and use, no doubt animals for slaughter and use... a sort of working apparatus of accounting for need within the farm, then the tweaking of the system accordingly, all use, no waste, and a circular motion of trade in and trade out. The dependence on slavery for this system was wrong both at the cultural and individual level, but it doesn't mean the modern cannot find answers for sustainability in the construction and accounting of farms of the past.